The making of the neoliberal queer and reconciliation with Canadian national security: The apology from above versus the apology from below
A talk by Gary Kinsman
Sunday March 25, 1-3pm
AKA Autonomous Social Centre, 75 Queen Street, up the ramp
This talk draws on my work on the making of the neoliberal queer which provides a social basis for some queers (mostly cis white middle class gay men, but not only) to reconcile with neoliberal racialized capitalist relations and Canadian settler colonial state formation. This new class/race strata provides a basis for some queers who were constructed as ‘risks’ to the nation during the Canadian war on queers to become part of the ‘nation’ and to be deployed against the ‘national security risks’ of Indigenous land and water defenders, anti-tar sands and anti-pipeline activists, Muslim and Arab identified people, and others. In particular this talk will focus on the long history of queer resistance to the Canadian war on queers which produced the basis for an apology from below which has been transformed by a number of social and state forces into an apology from above identified with the ‘nation’ and national security. The potential for continuing resistance to homonationalism and the neoliberal queer will be at the centre of the talk.
Bio: Gary Kinsman is a queer liberation, AIDS, anti-poverty and anti-capitalist activist living on Indigenous land. He is currently involved in the AIDS Activist History Project and the We Demand an Apology Network. He is the author of The Regulation of Desire, co-author of The Canadian War on Queers and co-editor of We Still Demand! and Sociology for Changing the World. He is Professor Emeritus in Sociology, Laurentian University and his website is: http://radicalnoise.ca/
This event is free and all are welcome! For more information contact germinations@riseup.net.